Patch 5.2 PTR Early January - The Thunder King is Risen
The Blizzard CM team just sent us this with the following message: Happy Holidays from the World of Warcraft team! Here’s a small present to tide you over until the new year.

This timeline is indeed surprising... though they did say they had two separate teams working on 5.1 and 5.2 simultaneously.

I'm actually somewhat dubious that they'll have another full-fledged daily grind rep... I'm fairly certain that they'll have a raid rep, but with the work involved in making a daily quest grind (especially if they're going to write a story around it,) players continued... quibbling... about them, and the necessary set up, they might forgo it.

"The previously announced patch (5.2) would have been enjoyable to play during the Christmas holidays, when people with full time jobs would have had an opportunity to fully play it. However, Blizzard has seen fit to decide to release it after the holidays, when employed people are going to be working full time again. On the other hand, unemployed people who are not actively contributing to society, or students who have a lot more spare time, will be able to fully enjoy such content".

Not that I agree, since this thing on LFR will be probably split into 1 to 3 raids of 4 bosses each, each with a maximum time commitment of about 45 minutes a week.

Also, I do not agree, since in the holiday period you shouldn't really be wasting time on this stuff and just going out to get Pi**ed out of your head and have a good time instead of being at home and playing games... but that is just me...